When I teach Perl people keep asking me why do all these people spend their free time on writing modules and uploading them to CPAN?
I usually tell them because it is fun and that they get the appreciation of fellow programmers - something IMHO you rarely get in the corporate environment. Then we - the CPAN authors and other contributors - have these discussions on various mailing lists and blog posts on how much we are supposed to care about the "user experience": writing docs, not breaking backward compatibility, fixing bugs... etc. Some people say we have to do this other say be happy with what we already contributed. It was a gift. That's not the question now. This whole thing makes me wonder, why do *you* really contribute to CPAN? Is it for the fun of writing code? - You don't need to distribute your code for that. Is it to participate in the community? Is it to get a virtual pat on the shoulder (or a beer in the bar) from other programmers? Is it to make other people happy by letting them do their job easier? Is it because you feel obligated as you are using other peoples code free of charge? I would run a poll asking this question but I am not even sure in the possible answers and I'd be happy in more descriptive answers. So why do *you* contribute to CPAN? regards Gabor -- Gabor Szabo http://szabgab.com/
